Critical gun injuries to US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords could have been averted had there been more guns, a leading Republican warned today.

Giffords was shot by 22 year-old gun owner Jared Loughner as she addressed a public meeting being held in a Tucson supermarket.

In a statement to reporters, Arizona politician Senator Loon Broomfield said that Congresswoman Giffords would have been unharmed had she just opened fire first.

“The fact is that had she been armed, she could have seen a weird guy approaching and shot him in the face, then perhaps again in the belly or in the testis,” he said.

“Then other citizens could have joined in, shooting from the cover of the shelf displays with a mix of small arms and rifles.”

“This whole incident would have been defused in a flash.”

Gabrielle Giffords shot

Senator Broomfield has called for guns to be more freely available in public places, to avoid such tragedies happening again.

He also advocates distributing arms and ammunition to high school pupils to ensure their safety.

“The socialists would have you believe that we should try and prevent our children from defending themselves using guns, land mines and grenades,” he said.

“Yet they have a fundamental constitutional right to do this, should they be faced with a suspicious-looking ex-classmate wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.”

“We’ve worked incredibly hard in previous administrations to make it incredibly straight forward to get a gun, so more people should take advantage of their availability.”

“Loughner himself was rejected by a few colleges, and considered too unstable for the Army, yet he had no trouble legally buying a gun with which to shoot Congresswoman Giffords. It’s a doddle, honest.”

Meanwhile, a National Rifle Association spokesperson was at a loss to explain the motives of the gunman, who was arrested at the scene.

“The cops described him as a troubled loner with an obsessive anti-government fixation, a hatred of liberal values and a history of engaging with far-right rhetoric on social networking sites,” he said.